


A King To His Steward

by GreyNarcissus



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Fever Dreams, John Childermass is a stormy boy, John Childermass is the Raven Steward, LITERALLY, M/M, Making Love, Paganism, Post-Canon, Symbolism, Worship, emotional Childermass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:14:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29813784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyNarcissus/pseuds/GreyNarcissus
Summary: Exhausted and feverish, John Childermass settles into a night in an inn and is visited by the tender attentions of his King. A meditation on the paganism of a son of the north.
Relationships: John Childermass/John Uskglass | The Raven King
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	A King To His Steward

**Author's Note:**

> Containing within the pagan fervour of John Childermass, most powerful magician in England. 
> 
> A gift for my beloved Kat who inspires in me great acts of creation.

The bath would cost him, he knew it. A groom for Brewer, a private bedroom, freshly banked fire and enough hot water for him to sit up to his chest. He hadn’t even felt all that guilty as the girls lugged heavy buckets to and from the kitchen to his small bedroom.

Slumped by his fire, John Childermass had managed to strip off his hat and boots and little else. He was practically steaming by the fire, resting his damp hair against the warm bricks of the hearth. His greatcoat lay so heavy across his shoulders that he wondered if he would even be able to rise and enjoy his extravagant soak. 

It wasn’t just the thick wool of his reliable coat, his bones felt too heavy. It couldn’t have been the rain, he’d taken enough torrential journeys in his life to barely feel even the heaviest of downpours. He must have been ill when he left London and only succumbed once on the road back north.

As the girl, the landlady’s daughter bobbed and told him they were done he wordlessly cursed the south for its dank air and disease. He nodded to her as he hauled his aching body from the creaking seat. At least, he hoped the screams of protest came from the joists of the chair and not his own body. 

Shedding his wet clothes in an increasing heap before the cheerful fire he steadied himself against the edge of the steaming tub. Despite the effort put in, the water was disappointingly tolerable. Like a mug of tea made with too much milk. Nevertheless, it clung to his skin as he gracelessly sank into the tub. It would be no easy feat to eventually leave but he would leave that discomfort for another John Childermass to struggle through.

Long, travel-stained fingers trailed under the surface, leaving steaming water in their wake. It might be a false economy to use the last scrap of his will to keep his bath hot, but the gooseflesh that prickled across his skin made the effort intensely worthwhile. With a deep groan, he sank back into the water, releasing the tie in his hair so that the long tresses soaked up the heat.

The tingle began in his scalp, then ran down the stiffness in his neck, his shoulders and sore spine (heavily impacted from a long day’s ride), the rawness in his thighs from the damp friction of riding Brewer through the rain, and the arches of his large feet. In a moment he would need to take up the rough washcloth and scrub the road from his body. But until then he would be content to close his eyes and allow the heat to draw up into his long, weary limbs.

He felt like an ancient tree, crooked and gnarled. One that had sat out on the moors for generations, whipped by sharp wind and icy rain. Stubborn and resolute against the turning of the seasons. He took pride in how deep his roots dug into the land, wrapping around the rocky bluffs. Still, he needed this, the water and nourishment that the bath provided. It was as if his roots were drinking in the heat and restoring every inch of his bark flesh until all he wanted to do was stretch his leaves out towards the sunlight. He wanted to reach up towards the watercolour sky and breath the bright, clean air of the dales.

It was the water suddenly covering his nose that shocked him from his reverie. Had he fallen asleep? He must have done, his body feeling somewhat stiff in the cooling water. His brow, however, remained feverish, his pulse elevated. With jerky motions, he scrubbed his frame still heavy with sleep and sickness and combed his fingers through the thick dark waves of his hair. 

The innkeeper had been instructed to leave him to sleep rather than to collect the bathwater, so he promised himself that he could reheat the water in the morning if he desperately wanted to soak again. But the very idea of expending so much effort on his magic made John shiver with weakness. As he braced his arms against the cloth-covered wood, the window shutters rattled with outrage; the storm had finally caught up with him. 

John’s hollow laughter seemed a strange response to the howling wind, but in truth, he viewed every storm that pelted him like an old friend. One fragment of a greater whole that had dogged him since the night he was born. 

“Y’took your time,” he muttered, hauling himself to stand, the tepid bath water lapping around his strong legs. 

Despite the rush of fever to his aching head, he steadied himself and dried every inch of his body with the rough linen provided him. He knew better than to go to bed still wet and had no desire to be carried off by a sudden sickness in some Midlands wayhouse. 

The shutters rattled in response as if seeking to join him in his cosy attic room. Childermass smirked at the cheek of it. 

As he wrenched his feet free of the water, the splash of droplets onto the fire grate steamed and hissed merrily and Childermass shivered. His nude body may have been exposed to the bedroom, yet he did not shiver from the cold. In fact, his brow continued to blaze even as he swept his cooling damp hair back from it. No, the sensation that crept across his skin was one of awareness. He felt the crackle of warmth from the cheerful fire, the fine dust of linen that rose when he shook out his nightshirt, the faint stream of chill air that cut through the gaps in the beams. He felt it all wrapping around him as potently as he felt the air of Yorkshire when he crossed the border. 

The bare boards felt, not unpleasantly, cool against his water-wrinkled feet as he crossed the room to ensure the door and shutters were firmly latched. When he laid his hand on the iron bars, the cold bit into him and he shuddered, aware of how far he was from the fire. From the sunlight. He was that windswept tree, his back to the dawn, the water he drank through his roots was bitterly cold, like ice in his veins. The air billowed through his linen leaves, hurt his bones and for a moment he was afraid he would fall. 

No.

No tree that had lived as long as he had could be felled by a storm like this. He was grown in the soil of the north. His roots went deep, his branches wide. And when Childermass came to, he was clinging to the bedpost staring at the guttering candle, sweat running down his face and catching on his cooling chest. 

He was grateful then for the extra wool blankets the landlady had provided him but knew his body would be inconstantly hot and cold for the remainder of the night. More than anything he knew he needed to sleep. His body couldn’t recover as long as he forced it forward. He would sleep as long as he needed to before returning home. To the north.

The rough bedding embraced him like an old friend. Like every bed he had ever slept in. The cot in the kitchen when he was a boy wrapped in a blanket that smelled like his mother, his bedroom at Hurtfew with the distant view of the wilderness garden through a bottle-thick window pane, the attic in Hanover Square that creaked and danced when the weather was funnelled down London’s tall streets.

The cold air caressing his burning cheek, he felt his body rising off the bed, the cry of ravens carrying him aloft as he fell into a deep slumber.

Summer rain fell like kisses on his face and he felt the strong hands that gripped him dig like talons into his taut muscle. 

Childermass knew he was flying yet rooted to the earth, raven and tree, man and spirit. 

He blinked his eyes against the watery sunlight, but the shadow cast across his face seemed to obscure everything but the merest implication of shape and form. He could not look, so he did not try. 

A man held him, with dark hair and deep sad eyes. He felt the scars across his cheek and shoulder burn with an aching cold only to be soothed once more by the soft warm rain. Each touch was like a nurturing, loving embrace from the sky. 

And yet a man was holding him. 

Lips chased those droplets of rain, both bodies settled into the deep moss that covered the rolling hills of his home. Despite the giddy excitement of it, there was also a guilt that touched his face with a raw feverish embarrassment. It was wrong, wasn’t it? To feel the hard, skinny frame so undeniably masculine against his own and yearn for that connection. 

Childermass had been no stranger to this touch, but never in such blissful sunlight. Always in shadows, in dark corners, and hurried secret whispers. He felt those eyes on him again, appreciating him in a way none ever had. Confident fingers mapped his collarbone, the planes of his chest, the gouges that had become scars, the soft curve of his stomach. He jolted, knowing all too well where it would lead.

But he was not afraid. 

Dimly, Childermass was aware of the distant crackle of embers, of the rattling storm that threatened to blow the window in. That same storm raged in his heart when this man caressed him. He longed to open his eyes, to reach out and behold his partner with hands and spirit. Yet at each turn he was denied, the brightness of the daylight and the cosy embrace of the springy moss cradling and subduing him.

The strong cool hands peeled up the tattered hem of his nightshirt and stripped all the cloth that clad John’s body from thigh to shoulder. He ought to have felt exposed, lying on his back in the open moorland as his legs were spread confidently open, and yet there was such trust in him as could silence any doubt. With a choked sob he realised that it was the first time he had felt safe while tended to, that his mind was nowhere else but this space and this time. 

He felt the whimper bubble up in his chest as those fingers speared into him. It was a noise he’d not heard since he was much younger, first in service, barely twenty years to his name and roughly opened up in some Hull tavern backroom by a man twice his age. 

The stranger laid a hand on John’s cheek and he realised he’d been crying, whispering pleas and promises to his potential lover. Decades of tension unwinding in his chest as he was held in place. All around he became aware of the rustle of feathers, birds landing on the hills and branches. Birds landing in his branches and singing secrets to him. 

He wasn’t alone. 

Childermass did not know when his susurrus prayer turned to begging. He felt the hoarse rumble in his chest and thought for a moment that the breath had been punched out of him, so powerful was his want. Until those long fingers combed through his hair, holding his head with such tenderness and reverence that he turned away from the glow behind his eyes. 

When finally he was claimed by the spirit, it was with his whole body that he cried out. Childermass raised a hand to hold the stranger in place, his rough hands wrapping around the forearm, pressing harsh kisses against the delicate bones of his wrist. He was so open, so vulnerable, he felt himself spiralling out of control. 

With an overwhelmed gasp he was caught in every helpless moment of his life. Holding his mother’s hand as she faded from him, the day that replaced the air in his lungs with bitter saltwater, the bleeding magic that cracked from his lips, the sound of a gunshot and Lady Pole’s awful screams. He had felt his heart soar that day too, like dying and being reborn all at once. 

The ravens around him were calling to him, the stranger’s lips pressed against his forehead as their bodies were brought together in the roughness of the new day. His body sang, his head swam, heart full of bursting with a rapture he could find no name for. 

For the first time in his life, John Childermass knew what it was to be worshipped. 

When he broke he felt the sweet summer rain touch him everywhere. Each droplet sparking lightning across his sensitive skin. His thighs were sore where his legs had been bent almost double and his shoulder ached like a winter’s morning.

With a final anguished wail, the pair of them broke apart. Those perfect fingers unwound from John’s hair and he felt the warmth of sleep threaten to overcome him again. He still could not open his eyes, he was falling. Two fingers cupped the line of his jaw and he felt the satisfaction of the man he had given himself unto. The man who bent his noble frame to embrace his steward and whisper a final recitation against his skin.

In that moment John knew that he had pleased his King. 

Childermass awoke with a start, eyes struggling against the brutal dawnlight. The open shutters rattled noisily against the walls and the fresh cool air that chased the storm away whistled through every board and casement. It had come from the north, he knew that, it was a message sent to carry him home. 

John wiped the tears from his face and rose to embrace the day.


End file.
